Diver panics - Cape Town

[Scuba_Shoe]

Scuba diver nearly drowns after suffering a panic attack

 

[Dan]

Wow! She's lucky to be seen. Kudos to whoever saved her from drowning.

 

[kelemvor]

Boy this video sure is making the rounds lately. It was posted to youtube over a year ago. I wonder if dailymail got permission to reuse it.
It's also been posted here once, from the original youtube source (which is how I knew about it) Diver Panic (Video)

But yea, scary!

 

[Hatul]

It looks to me like she's negatively buoyant and is kicking to keep from sinking.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

It looks to me like she's negatively buoyant and is kicking to keep from sinking.

The other thing I noticed (and I'm making an assumption that the guy giving the UP signal to everyone is either an Instructor or DM or at least the person in charge of the group) is a situational awareness thing on this person's part. (And this is simply an observation, not a criticism.)

If you watch the video, he gets a response for the two divers to the left, and gets a response from the buddy of the soon-to-panic diver but not her. In fact, she's looking down and seems to be flailing already. He gives the signal again but no response from her. IMHO, this is when he should have made a move towards her because something;'s not right. (And I'm ignoring the entire why-isn't-her-buddy-aware-of-this-too train f thought.)

He then signals another diver approaching the left group and gets a response. He appears to then begin the ascent and glances right (and you can see her struggling already), check his gauge, and then looks to the right again.

At this point, you can see she's struggling, he's above her, she's already above her buddy and that means neither one of them can provide immediate assistance. You can then hear an audible GULP as she rips her mask off and starts to bolt. I'm amazed her was able to get her to take the reg back, and she did so without her mask on her face.

The other thing I notice is that, once the reg is back in her mouth (presumably - it's hard to tell with the bubbles), he appears to not take hold of her or do anything to try to control her or the ascent (although he does appear to be holding her right wrist at the surface). I'd rather have seen him grab her armpit (I'm a big fan of human contact helps control panic) or at least her BC or even her tank valve. Because she could just as easily have spit the reg back out and gone up or down.

The other thing that bugs me a bit is that, once she's on the surface, no one's inflating her BC, or ditching or just taking her weights, or even saying anything to her. All you hear is her gasping. Granted, the video cuts off after that but I think there should have been some reassuring/assessing going on.

Here's the scary takeaways from a timing standpoint:
0:17 - First UP sig to her
0:19 - Second UP sig to her
0:30 - She's struggling
0:40 - He realizes something's wrong (he sculls his hand up to push himself down)
0:41 - She rips off mask and spits out her reg
0:46 - He attempts to hand her octo
0:51 - His octo goes in her mouth
0:54 - They're ascending (unknown depth)
1:09 - They surface (15 seconds after they started)
1:24 - Video ends

So from the point of the second non-response to the panic, it's 22 seconds. So I think one of the takeaways here, especially for anyone newly-certified or new DMs or Instructors, is that while this stuff happens quickly, IF you're situationally aware, there's enough time to POSSIBLY (speculation) prevent the incident from happening.

And it's also important to remember, and this is where the situational awareness comes in, that panic doesn't just suddenly appear out of nowhere. It's a step-by-step process that builds (slowly or quickly) and results in panic. But you may have time (in this case, at least 22 seconds) to react.

And the other takeaway is you're a dive leader is to remember that your job is not simply to get people from Point A to B and back to A. Rightly or wrongly, they may be relying on you more than you realize. personally, I'd rather over-react than under-react. Also makes it much easier to sleep at night feeling you did everything reasonably possible, rather than second-guessing and thinking "If only I had . . ."

- Ken

 

[Rooster59]

Diver Panic (Video)

FYI that is the old (previous) thread on the same video

 

[Dan]

If I look frame by frame, she refused to get the backup reg or the DM was never be able to get the reg into her mouth. She wasn't sinking. She just bolted up & her right hand pulled away the backup reg. She wanted to ascend quickly so she could breath the surface air, not the air from the reg.

 

[EricTheDood]

She probably had no idea at the time that the object being shoved in her face was an octo.

I would guess that it started with poor buoyancy control where she sank about 10 feet. Watching everybody else ascend, she probably thought she sank 20 feet. I doubt she remembered to equalize, so with a flooded mask, pressure on the ears, and fears of abandonment, panic ensued.

 

[chillyinCanada]

The dive leader was breathing pretty heavily at the end too!

 

[Silver $crambler]

Here is a telling quote from the Daily Mail regarding this incident.

He said: 'She would have drowned as her buddy was just as inexperienced as she was.
'Due to the bad visibility we got separated from the dive master. I just tried to keep everyone together and decided to ascend.
'After communicating this through to all the members and starting the descend I noticed that she was not ascending and could see she was starting to panic.
'I actually started to swim towards her before she ripped off her mask and regulator.'

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